UKOLN News

A recent item from the Times Higher Education covers the emergence of the Web 2.0 tools Mendeley and Zotero and their level of support and deployment in the management of research papers online. Cameron Neylon, University of Southampton, advocated their use: “You can use them to deal with the quantity of information scientists need to keep track of and identify collaborators with complementary interests.”

The author also turned to other organisations for their views, pointing to the study conducted by JISC and the Research Information Network (RIN) entitled Communicating knowledge: how and why researchers publish and disseminate their findings which stated that take-up by academics was lower than anticipated. Neil Jacobs of JISC indicated there were interesting examples of usage by researchers of such technologies but that, “what is appropriate in one field of research may not be appropriate in another”. Liz Lyon of UKOLN advised that a further obstacle to adoption lay in the area of trust: “Academics can be concerned that they will be ‘scooped’ and so there is a reluctance to share. You may find people will share information with known contacts, but are wary about opening themselves up on the Internet.” Branwen Hide, RIN, remarked that “academics like things to be quick and simple and if a product isn’t, they won’t use it”.

Cameron Neylon summarised the benefits of Mendeley and Zotero by adding, “.. Essentially, you’re doing the same things you would have done previously but much more quickly and with access to many more people and items.”